Selected quad for the lemma: truth_n
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A31404
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King David's deliverance, and thanksgiving applied to the case of our King and nation, in two sermons, the one preached on the second, the other on the ninth of September, 1683 / by John Cave ...
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Cave, John, d. 1690.
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1683
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Wing C1584; ESTC R17525
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31,577
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69
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it He gave this resolute Answer to the King of Persia Si propter ista me denegaturum Christum putas ista denuo accipe If you think I value my Honours above Christ pray take them from me again We have another Instance not altogether unlike this in St. Basil The Emperor sent to him to subscribe the Arrian Heresy Theod. and ordered his Agent to treat him at first with fair and enticing Speeches and the promise of great Preferments which he did but to them the good Man replied Alas these are Arts to inveigle Children but we that are nourished and taught by the Holy Scriptures are readier to suffer a thousand Deaths than to renounce one Article of our Creed And when he that dealt with him proceeded from Entreaties to Increpations and told him He was mad his meek return was Opto me in aeternum sic delirare God grant I may be always thus mad that neither Enmity nor Friendship Fears nor Hopes may move me or draw me off from bearing Testimony to the Truth of Jesus We do not we cannot confess to God aright if we are not as ready to own him and glory in him among his Enemies as among his Friends when the Profession and Practice of the True Religion of our Saviour shall bring us to taste of his bitter Cup and we shall be hated of all that is of the generality of Men for his Name 's sake for adhering to his Truths as they have been delivered in the Scriptures and taught in the best and purest Ages of the Church Then and not till then will it appear that we are acted by David's Spirit when we are ready to speak if need be of God's Testimonies even before Kings that oppose them and not be ashamed of them Then do we approve our selves the Servants and Worshippers of Daniel's God when we own him with the hazard nay with the certain loss of Reputation Liberty and utmost danger of Life it self This Constancy and Courage for the Truth was it which denominated those Heroick Christians of former Ages Confessors namely their taking up their Master's Cross and owning him among their Heathen Persecutors My Brethren through the infinite Patience and Goodness of God towards us who have deserved no such thing we have been delivered from our Blood-thirsty Enemies Papists and another sort of Men who have made use of the Protestant Name as a Cloak to secure them in opposing of the Protestant Cause and undermining the Established Religion And we are at present exempt from those Sufferings and Martyrdoms which in other Ages and in our own Country have been the Lot of God's most faithful Servants But alas we know not how soon our Heaven may overcast again and the Clouds follow after the Rain The great Fear is lest the Papists should imitate the True Protestant Policy and either pursue their Old or set on foot a New Plot in hopes that if it do or do not take they may leave it at other Mens Doors and as easily now make the World believe that it was a Phanatick Plot as the Phanaticks could hope to perswade us that theirs was a Popish One and so the latter end of our Fears and Troubles may prove worse than the beginning It will be the wisdom of our Piety in the midst of our Jubilees and Triumphs to prepare for new Dangers and Trials and to resolve That the God of our Mercies and Deliverances shall be our God in every Condition that his Rod as well as his Staff shall comfort us and that we will put our whole trust in him as well when he slays as when he saves us This God shall be our God for ever and ever he shall be our Guide even unto death And this minds me of a Third Particular in this our Confessing and Acknowledging of God's Almighty Goodness in our Deliverance and that is Dependance upon him for relief and rescue in the like distress Let not our Courage sink our Spirits be disquieted or dejected with misboding Apprehensions of Future Evils but let us humbly trust in his continued Aid who hath been our present help in Trouble considering that Donando debet as St. Cyprian speaks God's past Blessings and Deliverances if we make a good use of them are Pawns and Engagements of Future I say if we make a due return for them and a right improvement of them Which brings me to the upshot of all the main Duty of my Text and of this Day especially II. The speaking singing living of Praises unto the Name of our God What we have spoken already concerning Confession unto God may denote a serious and wise consideration of his doings towards and dealings with us and some more silent shews of our Gratitude in our adherence to him and affiance in him I am now to speak of the Solemn Proclamations of his Greatness and Goodness which we are to make with the Voice of Thanksgiving When we have exercised our observing Faculty in regarding the Works of the Lord we must employ our Mouths to express the Thanks of our Minds and make known his Faithfulness to all Generations St. Basil in Psal 28. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Action must follow Contemplation in our Case And when we have considered the Operation of God's Hand our Mouth must praise him with joyful Lips not concealing his loving-kindness and his Truth from the great Congregation We must employ the best Organ we have our Tongue which the Royal Psalmist stiles our Glory in this best this heavenly this glorious Service of Praise And indeed if a grateful Affection live in our Hearts it will proceed forth of our Lips there will be a Conspiracy and faithful Correspondency between our Mind and our Tongue if the one be sensible the other will not be silent We shall talk of his loving-kindness in the Morning and of his faithfulness every Night uttering abundantly the memory of his great Goodness and singing of his Righteousness making known to the Sons of Men his mighty Acts and the glorious Majesty of his Kingdom according to the Expressions of our sweet singer in sundry places Acknowledgments of the Divine Goodness and solemn Testifications of our thankful sense thereof how indisposed and averse soever our sluggish Minds are thereunto was always and ever will be the principal and most noble part of all Religion immediatly addressed to God It is the only Heavenly Work that can be done upon Earth the only joyful Employment which shall last to all Eternity and which should ever wait for God in Sion and upon all occasions be exercised here in the Assemblies of the Faithful When the ordinary effects of the Divine Providence do in any advantageous manner present themselves to our view when we peruse the Volumes of Story and therein observe the various Events of humane Actions especially the seasonable Rewards of Vertue the notable Protection and Deliverance of Innocence and the deserved Punishments of malicious Wickedness Then is it
King DAVID's Deliverance and Thanksgiving Applied to the Case of Our King and Nation In Two SERMONS The one preached on the Second the other on the Ninth of September 1683. By JOHN CAVE Rector of Cold-Orton in Leicestershire And Chaplain to the L. Bishop of Durham Si quis unquam fuit inter Reges qui Davidis expressam maximè luculentam imaginem referret is sanè es ita ut nemo tecum eatenus comparandus esse videatur Amyrard Epistola ad Regem nostrum antè Paraphras in Psalmos Tum demum timentur Reges cum in populos incidit Domini pavor E periculis evadunt cum Deus dat salutem â—os eruit ex gladio maligno Bochart Epistola ad eundem The King's Glory is great in God's Salvation Honour and Majesty hath he laid upon him Psal 21.5 LONDON Printed for Richard Chiswell at the Rose and Crown in St. Paul's Church-Yard M.DC.LXXXIII TO THE Right Honourable and Right Reverend Father in God NATHANAEL Lord Bishop of DURHAM And Clerk of the Closet to his Majesty MY LORD I Most humbly dedicate these plain Discourses to your Lordship which though unworthy of your notice I hope may not be altogether unuseful to some part of our World at least not to those of my own Charge among whom I am chiefly bound by my best endeavours to promote Religion and Loyalty I know your Lordship favours the Subject and that you support and adorn it much more by your great and eminent Example than ever I can do by Argument or Eloquence Yet I have reason to conclude that your singular Goodness and Candor will easily overlook or pardon what your Wisdom cannot patronize And because I am well assured that your Lordship is sufficiently apprehensive of the evil and spreading Effects of some Mens popular Prints as well as Preachings I hope you will be pleased to allow of my affectionate opposition under the conduct of more powerful Reasoners It is I confess too evident that the Misactings of the real Papists and of our counterfeit Protestants proceed rather from perversness of Will and frowardness of Temper than from error of Judgment or scruple of Conscience And therefore they seem to need more the Schoolings of the Law and the Rebukes of Authority than the Illuminations of the Gospel and the Warnings of the Scripture the Doctrines Exhortations Perswasives of our Reconciling Ministry And if they are not already past feeling and incurably obstinate are like to profit more under an equal distribution of the Acts of Justice than a right division of the Word of Truth Yet I have still the charity to think that many of those who by their fair Colourings and plausible Pretences have been drawn into Conventicles Covenants and the Society of a very vile Cause do not err altogether of malicious wickedness but partly through simplicity of Heart like some of those who followed Absolom And therefore though too guilty yet not incorrigibly so nor quite past the Cure at least not the benefit of softer Remedies and such we are commissioned to administer meek Restauratives and rational Confirmations But if our Sermons alone will not prevail with such as these they may happily give edg and success to the Secular Sword and make even the Law a ministration of Love as well as of Terror by teaching them to be subject not only for Wrath but for Conscience and to be Active as far as honestly they can before they be Passive in their Obedience assuring them that praesumptio est pro Authoritate imponentis that where they have not a clear and undoubted evidence of the contrary they may safely conclude that Right and Truth are on the Governor's side My Lord I publish this Discourse principally for the sake of such Men as these who have been preached into a dislike of our Civil and Ecclesiastical Polity and therefore may happily be preached out of it again Men whose Intentions possibly have not been so bad as their Cause but their simple Hearts have been beguiled with the good Words and enticing Speeches of those that promised Liberty and Reformation while themselves were the Servants of Corruption and of a base Interest Yet truly My Lord I cannot expect any very good Fruit of my own or of much better Sermons on the same Occasion even among this sort of Men if that visible Hand of Providence which hath of late so signally detected the Hypocrisy of their Party hath not already opened their Eyes touched their Hearts and in a good measure wrought off their Prejudices and prepared them for contrary impressions But if this Publication and the Prayers that attend it obtain not all the good Ends of its Design yet I shall think it speeds well if it meets with your Lordships Approbation or kind Acceptance as a real though a very mean Testimony of my grateful sence of your ample and obliging Bounty to My good Lord Your Lordships most faithfully and humbly devoted Servant and Chaplain JOHN CAVE King DAVID's Deliverance and Thanksgiving SERMON I. PSALM 18.48 49. He delivereth me from mine Enemies yea thou liftest me up above those that rise up against me thou hast delivered me from the violent Man Therefore will I give thanks unto thee or confess unto thee O Lord among the Heathen and sing Praises unto thy Name THis Psalm is a Song of Thanksgiving penned by King David in commemoration of his many wonderful and gracious Deliverances from the Conspiracies and Assaults of his Enemies the Philistims Syrians Moabites particularly rebellious Absalom and bloody Saul as appeareth by the Course and Method of the Story where it is recorded 2 Sam. 22. In it with an enlarged and exilient Spirit the Spirit of a King and of a Saint he celebrates the Almighty Power and Goodness of God by describing his Dangers in the most black and terrible Images and his Deliverances from them in all the advantages of Representation which the Wisdom of Royal and Religious Gratitude could supply Vers 4 5. The Sorrows of Death compassed me and the Floods of ungodly Men made me afraid The Sorrows of Hell compassed me about the Snares of Death prevented me He goeth down to the Grave yea to Hell it self to sample his Sorrows and his Fears the devilish Malice and Cruelty of his Enemies He goeth up to the Rocks the high places of Strength and Safety yea to Life and Salvation it self in its Eternal Fountain to furnish him with some suitable Illustrations of that great Mercy which so miraculously subdued his Enemies and supported his Empire In the Verses before my Text The Lord liveth and blessed be my Rock and let the God of my Salvation be exalted It is God that avengeth me and subdueth the People under me What follows is the Text to which I shall limit my Discourse at this time He delivereth me from mine Enemies yea thou liftest me up above those that rise up against me thou hast delivered me from the violent Man